Priority 4: Capacity
Growing and supporting Samaritans’ team, to be as good as we can be.
We committed £3.1m this year to drive progress in this priority area.
I’m an ex-gang member. I wanted to give back to the community and I thought, what is the best way I can do that? So I was looking at different organisations and then I came across Samaritans and I thought, OK, what do they do? And I realised they just listened to people.
Paul, Samaritans volunteer
"And because I can get into certain places and talk to certain people who trust me, I can use those Samaritans skills to talk to them and find out exactly what’s going on in their life. Then they can find out there’s different options for themselves so that they don’t need to carry the gun, they don’t need to do certain things. I travel around, put in Samaritans leaflets to different places." - Paul, Samaritans volunteer
I started volunteering about a year and a half ago. I had always known that I really wanted to be able to give to someone what I felt Samaritans had given to me.
Lexi, Samaritans volunteer
"I thought it would make me feel really good about myself – and it has. I looked into my local branch, who were doing interviews and as I’ve got a fairly flexible schedule, it seemed like the right time, and I told myself, ‘Why not?’" - Lexi, Samaritans volunteer
Strengthening safer recruitment across Samaritans
Creating a safe environment for the people we support is fundamental. In 2024, we updated our criminal record check process to strengthen safeguarding across every part of Samaritans. We also introduced digital ID verification, making the process to apply for a criminal record check quicker. 65 per cent of volunteers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland used this option. These changes put the right safeguards in place while making recruitment more efficient for our volunteers.
Strengthening volunteer leadership
We have begun to redesign how we recruit and support volunteer Directors to make the process more open, inclusive and effective. The aim is to create a clearer, fairer approach with a consistent leadership development offer to build a more diverse and sustainable pipeline of volunteer leaders in our branches and hubs.